On occasion I like to share things that go on behind the scenes at work (http://www.tpac.org) that the general public rarely ever gets to see if at all.

Currently the Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk stages are undergoing replacement. Why is this worth reporting on you ask? Well, both stages have been in place for 20 years and in that time a great many famous and talented stage actors, actresses, and performances have taken place on these stages (Weird Al Yankovic, 501st Legion, White Stripes, and Jerry Lewis just to name a few). That’s a lot of history to be sure.

Here is the Jackson stage area where you can see the new stage going in as well as the trap doors that to the best of our knowledge have never been used and were covered up by the previous stage. They will be fully sealed in this time around as they create weak spots in the stage when heavy equipment is rolled over them.

Another reason I’m sharing this is because I myself have also had my time in the spotlight on Jackson stage while my guitar rig was living in my office while I was in the process of saving up for and buying a house. Here’s a quick snippet.

So, on top of all the talent that walked and performed on this stage I myself have also “performed” (more like drinking beer and screwing around) on the stage thus adding more sentimental value to this next photo.

This is a piece of Jackson stage which I grabbed off the pile before it was tossed into the dumpster. I intend to trim it down and straighten out the edges, sanding the edges to round them out, and then find some ornate coffee table legs to tack onto it at which point this will be my living room table at home. I’ll likely put a small plaque on it with it’s install and removal dates for historical reference. All in all I think it’s a cool piece of history to own, not to mention that it’s part of a stage that I myself have played on. I’ll post progress on the table as it moves to completion.

IT’S ALMOST OVER!!! I’M GOING TO BE BROKE FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS BUT IT’S ALMOST OVER!!!

*deep breath* *exhale*

Let me begin by saying that the process of buying a house SUUUUUUUUCKS. Over the past several months I have completely upended my entire life in order to go through this process, and I’m VERY happy to say it is almost over. For all you would be house hunters out there, go ahead and get prepared for a hellish experience. Here’s a taste of the 3 phases you will encounter during the process, whether you want to or not, in order.

PHASE 1:

Being dragged halfway across the state and back by your realtor trying to find a suitable house and making a bid on it before someone else yanks it out from under you while a loan officer bombards you with paperwork you don’t understand and can’t get them to explain putting you into a perpetual loop of “WTF is going on??!!”.

PHASE 2:

Congrats! You found the perfect house and got it under contract, let the buying begin! This is the “legal forms, inspections, negotiations, more forms, hidden fees, additional fees, where-did-this-come-from fees, ‘wait, this is gonna cost HOW much?’ fees, stop-rushing-me-through-the-contract” phase. It’s a fresh hell to be sure.

PHASE 3:

YOU’VE DONE IT! YOU MADE IT TO CLOSING! Yes, it’s been a long and hellish process and at this point you couldn’t care less about the mental roller-coaster you were just subjected to. You’re just happy that now the whole process is in the hands of a couple of lawyers who’ve been no part of the process until now and can make or break the entire deal on a house that is now costing you about $200 a month over your budget while you contemplate how many different ways you can prepare ramen noodles and how many consecutive packs of noodles you’ll have to eat before a cyanide pill starts to look appetizing.

YAY HOME OWNERSHIP!

So, with the end of my home buying escapades close at hand it will be back to life as (something that resembles) normal. I’ll have my office and my jam room back, so my art table and the website are going to get some much needed attention as will all my tech and music gear that’s been collecting dust either at work or in storage. That is really about all the update I have right now as my entire life has been swallowed up in this process. I have yet to hear back from Top Cow about my talent hunt submission so it either didn’t warrant a response or they haven’t finished the process of choosing finalists/winners. Work is as busy as ever as we roll up on budget renewal and projects are starting to gear up from cruising to ramming speed.

In my usual fashion, long time no post, again. Lots and LOTS going on over here in the world of Watts. The usual grind notwithstanding I’m off on the adventure of home buying which is what I’ve been busting my ass and my pride to save up for over the last 6-8 months. This all, of course, adds up to little time if any to get to the (portable) drawing table. But, the sooner I get my nose to the grindstone and get the house hunting over with the sooner I can actually get back to the (stationary) drawing table. Cowboy up and hammer down.

I do have some stuff to share however. I’ll start with a couple of pieces that I doodled in the recent months. One a mermaid that started as a doodle and just went to full pens, the other an unfinished portrait of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman that I started the morning that his passing had been reported.

The Hoffman piece I’m thinking should remain unfinished, given that I feel his life and his career were far from finished. We have lost a lot of great talent already in 2014, I hope we have seen the last of that trend for the year.

Lastly, my (short) submission to the Top Cow 2013 Talent Hunt. I had such high hopes for this project, and I’ve got the storyboards to prove it. The sample script completed would have been a total of 8 pages including a 2-page spread. Between work, medical issues, and house hunting all at the same time I clearly bit off more than I could chew, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to bite. I hammered out these two pages and began the process of pages 4-5 which is the 2-page spread when the contest deadline hit. I had actually considered not submitting, but then came to my senses and realized that I still put the hours and work into these pages, so there’s no reason not to submit them. As Ron Marz put it to me “Better to do 4 or 5 kick-as pages than 8 half-assed pages.” While I was only able to submit 2 pages, the 2-page spread following it is still on my agenda to finish, mainly just because I came up with some really groovy visuals for it and I want to see it done. 🙂 So, since these have already been submitted to Top Cow, I now release them out into the wild!

So, it’s hurry up and await my fate time on that project. There’s no telling how many actual submissions they received much less how long it will take them to go through them all and narrow down the finalists/winners. Good thing I have plenty to keep me busy.

That’s all the post I have in me for now folks. I hope within the next couple of months, hopefully less, to be back in my own sanctuary and working feverishly on all things art, music, and technology. Stay Tooned!